The period epic Lincoln may
be the least Spielbergian movie that director Steven Spielberg has ever made.
Not only is it shot in a remarkably straight-forward way for such a visual
stylist, but it is also an unhurried, contemplative, and actually quite subtle
film for a director whose recent ventures were War Horse and The Adventures of TinTin. Therefore: never say never. Lincoln is proof that Spielberg can be a great storyteller
when he has a great script.

He has that here, thanks to perhaps America's most
intellectual and politically passionate playwright, Tony Kushner (Angels in
America). The dialogue is a thing of beauty
-- both literate and folksy, touching on grand ideas as well as the frailty of
ordinary humans -- and it often feels like the thoughtful, opinionated
discussions by the Founders in HBO's John Adams. Like that award-sweeping miniseries, which was
based on a 650-page biography, Lincoln accomplishes an impressive feat -- it adapts a door-stopper, in this
case Doris Kearns Goodwin's 750-page history Team of Rivals: The
Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, and
winnows out the important and meaningful information. It feels rich and alive
but not rambling (the graveyard of lo, so many bio-pics), because it focuses
with determined precision on a 4-month period around the end of the Civil War
when Lincoln was most actively and most urgently pursuing an amendment to
outlaw slavery. At the same time, however, Kushner and Spielberg leaven all the
epic stuff about changing America forever with just the right number of small
details: Abe's animosity toward wearing leather gloves; how much he spoils his
youngest son; the unhappiness of his marriage; and the look in his eye when his
aides want decisions and instead he digs in his heels and tells a drawling
anecdote.

Though the characterization of the eponymous character, as
written by Kushner and performed by Daniel Day-Lewis, is mesmerizing, Lincoln
is not just a biography of a president but
also a biography of radical change -- a process story about the
passage of the 13th Amendment, with some similarities to earlier
types of process stories, like Aaron Sorkin's The West Wing, though more monumental. It turns out that the steps
on the road to the abolition of slavery were anything but noble: there are
nowhere near enough votes to pass the amendment, and the imminent end of the
Civil War hangs over Lincoln's head, making him fear that those he has freed will
be ordered back into servitude if his Emancipation Proclamation has no
peacetime equivalent. A point is reached when the only way to secure the needed
support for a firm end to slavery is to bribe, threaten, cheat, and deceive. Or
in the words of a Lincoln ally near the close of the film: the 13th
Amendment was "passed by corruption aided and abetted by the purest man in
America." (Lincoln was never quite a saint, though, as this article shows.)

The sausage-making of politics is not supposed to be
palatable to watch, but in this case, the hijinks are quite delightful. Like
the Godfather, or Nixon, honest Abe has to take a back seat so his name cannot
be linked to anything unsavory. This leaves lots of the most dynamic work up to
supporting players -- who are bursting with vim and vigor, and deliciously
well-cast: James Spader, John Hawkes, and Tim Blake Nelson play three low-lifes
hired to extort co-operation from members of Congress; Peter McRobbie and Lee
Pace are vociferous Democratic congressmen staunchly opposed to abolition;
Tommy Lee Jones is the radical, hotheaded abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens;
Michael Stuhlbarg is a timid politician pressured into doing the right thing;
and David Strathairn is the reserved, pragmatic Secretary of State, William
Seward, who finds Lincoln's plans ill-advised and yet helps make them happen.
(His characterization has met with the approval of the director of the historic
Seward House, though two significant moments from Seward's relationship with
Lincoln were left out of the film.)

President Lincoln is in almost every scene, and with
Day-Lewis in the role he quietly dominates each one. But there is also an
enveloping tapestry of Republicans, Democrats, abolitionists, soldiers and
advisors, all of them struggling through a uniquely turbulent time. Neurotic
Mrs. Lincoln (Sally Field) is there, adoring yet resenting her husband -- she
seems to wish she had married a more ordinary man. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays
Lincoln's defiant son, ill-suited for following in his dad's intellectual
footsteps. Jared Harris is the Union's dignified General, Ulysses Grant; Hal
Holbrook (who has himself played Lincoln on TV) is Francis Blair, a southern
Republican with contacts on the Confederate side (he will later turn Democrat);
and Jackie Earle Haley is a beady-eyed emissary from the South, registering all
the humiliation and anger of his people when he realizes slavery -- the region's
economic staple -- is history.

Daniel Day-Lewis as President Lincoln in a movie still from "Lincoln"

Though there are ignoble actions going on, there's never any
doubt in the movie that Lincoln possesses a fundamental morality, that he cares
deeply about ending slavery. He is down-to-earth and modest, but we can see the
remarkable person underneath: wise, shrewd, humane, and committed. Day-Lewis
plays him as an idiosyncratic but consummate leader who listens intently to
even the humblest interlocutors, his eyes peering into their souls. He is introduced,
in fact, at an army base, meeting with soldiers one-on-one. He is the epitome
of gentle courtesy and rapt attention, whether listening to his boisterous
pre-pubescent son or to a challenging black soldier who wants to make sure
Lincoln understands the issues. Yes, it's a hagiographic depiction, with the
crowd-pleasing humor and warmth that fits so comfortably with a holiday season
release, but it's also a layered portrait, permitted by the director to flower
slowly. Day-Lewis' Lincoln draws people to him simply by thinking, and
he manages to radiate energy just sitting and staring at the floor.

And there's a lot of thinking required. The burdens of
leadership weigh heavily upon his shoulders. Like Shakespeare's Henry V, he
likes to perambulate among the common people because he is faced with an
awesome responsibility -- and difficult choices. The long and winding path to
abolition hits a pivotal crossroads when ending the Civil War and ending
slavery come to be at odds with each other. Lincoln could engage with the
South's proffered peace delegation right away, or he could delay so as to have
the leverage to pass the amendment. (His public argument having been that the
South is fighting to preserve slavery, and that they won't sue for peace unless
they see that slavery is no longer an option, he stands to lose the support of
those on the fence, those who don't care much whether slavery continues or
not.) Lincoln's dilemma becomes even more terrible and personal when his own
son enlists -- and Mrs. Lincoln has a meltdown over the prospect of losing a
second son in the war.

I had expected Lincoln to
glorify militarism more, especially considering Spielberg's recent foray into
the First World War. I think he's consciously trying not to do that: the movie's very first
imagery is the silent ugliness of the Civil War, as soldiers from both the
North and the South, the Northern regiment being black, wrestle bitterly in a
muddy drizzle. But it's not actually a war movie: most of the film seems to
take place in wood-paneled drawing rooms and offices, in a dim gloom broken up
by cold natural light. The war is referred to frequently but barely glimpsed;
it is a merely abstract, background concept. I'm sure Kushner could have
conveyed the horrors of the Civil War if that had been the assignment -- besides
writing a heart-rending play on Afghanistan, he co-authored the last serious
film Spielberg directed, the espionage drama Munich (an action thriller about a Mossad agent's
soul-searching), and he adapted Bertolt Brecht's classic anti-war play Mother
Courage in 2006. But that was in fact not
the assignment, and at the end of the picture, Lincoln's speech to the troops,
about fighting until every last whiplash is avenged, rings in the air.

I realize that not every film that is primarily concerned
with social justice takes an unmitigated stance against war. James Cameron's Avatar
was vividly against empire, wars of
aggression, and brutal subjugation, but it was also solidly in favor of those
under attack fighting back. Robert Bolt was arrested protesting nuclear
proliferation when he was supposed to be writing Lawrence of Arabia -- yet that film ended up celebrating in spectacular
scenes the battlefield wins of underdogs.

However, Bolt's screenplay also criticized T.E. Lawrence's
power rush and bloodthirstiness. This brings to mind what might have been
achieved with a little more ambiguity in Lincoln -- even if only to acknowledge the difference between who Abe became as
commander-in-chief during the most lethal conflict American troops have
endured, and who he once was as the Congressman from Illinois: the quixotic
sponsor of the "Spot Resolutions" in 1847, fiercely challenging expansionist
President Polk's efforts to launch the Mexican Wars after the U.S. was
allegedly attacked on a "spot' of U.S. soil near the Rio Grande.

But considering that this is a Spielberg entertainment, if
it's not exactly a college-level Ethics seminar we shouldn't actually be
surprised. Spielberg does seem much more comfortable with complexity and
restraint than he used to be. True, he can't resist beginning and ending the
movie on a sentimental note: the movie proper begins after a black soldier
marches away from the President, doing him the honor of reciting the closing
words of the Gettysburg Address over his shoulder; it ends with a sepia image
of Lincoln emerging from a candle flame, addressing a rapt army. But I can live
with that. And if you're going to be sentimental about anybody, Lincoln makes a convincing case that the 16th president
should be the guy.

Does Lincoln short-change
its black characters? Yes, of course -- this is Hollywood. (Though Spielberg
has made two previous films on civil rights issues without quite the same
oversight: The Color Purple and Amistad.) Apart from a few very minor roles -- soldiers in
the Union Army, Thaddeus Stevens' lover, and a male and female servant in the
Lincolns' employ -- there are no black roles. The best role for an
African-American character is given to David Oyelowo, who has one scene as a
proud corporal petitioning Lincoln for the redress of grievances. The
second-best is given to Gloria Reuben, who as Mrs. Lincoln's maid Elizabeth
gets a moving scene with the president -- the two of them try to envision a
post-slavery society, and to be real with each other for the first time.

That's pretty slim pickings, however. There were of course
black abolitionists, it wasn't all just achieved by benevolent white men.
Though the strategy discussions Kushner has written are fascinating, and the
feeling that these characters are poised on the cusp of revolutionary change is
intoxicating, a film with such a progressive agenda should have tried harder to
show courageous black opinion-makers too. The film is ultimately supposed to be
about the equality and freedom of all African-Americans. So it would be nice if
they had a chance to get a word or two in edgewise. And after all, the script
for Spielberg's Schindler's List did not
give all the major speaking roles to Aryans.

And considering the gigantic cast list this movie has, would
it have been so hard to use a few of those names to document the role of women
in this period? Many women worked very hard, for decades, in the abolition
movement,
including very famous national figures who also campaigned for universal
suffrage. You wouldn't know it from this film, however; the only female
characters are domestic servants and Lincoln's emotional wife -- who only
yearns from the gallery for the 13th Amendment to pass so her son
will return from the war.

Jennifer Epps is a peace, social justice, pro-democracy, environmentalist and animal activist in L.A. She has also been a scriptwriter, stage director, actor, puppeteer, and film critic. Her political film reviews are collected at: (more...)